Friday, August 17, 2007

Our Ripening Reich

George W. Bush's chief delinquency as Chief Executive, according to Philip Atkinson, is leniency. He has been too indulgent of the masses and their delicate moral sensibilities, which would be offended by the spectacle of blood and horror that is necessary to pacify Mesopotamia and terrify the Islamic world into acquiescence.

At the outset of the 2003 assault on Iraq, wrote British expat Atkinson in an August 3 essay for Family Security Matters (a project of the Center for Security Policy), Bush should have used "his" nuclear weapons "to slaughter Iraqis until they compiled with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed."

"The simple truth," continues Atkinson, is that "modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide." But Bush's options are limited by "his cowardly electorate," and outright nuclear genocide simply isn't a viable option ... for now.

Thus Bush should emulate the actions of Julius Caesar in the conquest of Gaul, which he "pacified by mass slaughter," thereby building a rapport with an army he later used to crush domestic opposition in Rome.

"If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (thereby turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege [sic] while terrifying American enemies."

"He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military ... to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court," concludes Atkinson. "President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, but becoming `ex-president' Bush or he can become `President-for-Life' Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons."

Mr. Atkinson, as the quality of his prose suggests, is not a well-educated man (although some of his errors may reflect the difficulty of typing only with his left hand, his right being kept rigidly flat at the end of an outstretched arm in a perpetual fascist salute). Judging by his autobiographical essay, Atkinson's unbuttoned embrace of authoritarian politics and genocide as foreign policy are part of his personal psychodrama. Whatever.

While it is easy to exaggerate the significance of Philip Atkinson and his musings, it is nonetheless worth pointing out that the CSP, which is near the top of the Right Blogosphere's food chain, attracted the services of an undisguised fascist as a "contributing editor" for one of its front groups. (Thanks, once again, to Radley Balko for bringing Atkinson's post to my attention.)

Atkinson's post was removed by the website's administrator. As Lew Rockwell pointed out, this was most likely done not out of substantive disapproval of the post, but because the author had revealed the "esoteric" neo-conservative agenda -- implementation of which would require mass slaughter and military dictatorship under a quasi-divine Dear Leader -- to the profane masses.

Before reproducing that poem, decency dictates that I warn readers who have eaten that reading it may have unfortunate consequences -- such as decorating their monitor screens and immediate environment with the partially-digested remnants of their most recent repast.

With that caveat in place, here is the hymn to the Divine Emperor Bush:

"Could martial law ever become a reality in America? Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just that. KSLA News 12 has discovered that the clergy would help the government with potentially their biggest problem: Us.... If martial law were enacted here at home, like depicted in the movie `The Siege,' easing public fears and quelling dissent would be critical. And that's exactly what the 'Clergy Response Team' helped accomplish in the wake of Katrina. Dr. Durell Tuberville serves as chaplain for the Shreveport Fire Department and the Caddo Sheriff's Office. Tuberville said of the clergy team's mission, `the primary thing that we say to anybody is, "let's cooperate and get this thing over with and then we'll settle the differences once the crisis is over."'" (Emphasis added.)

"For the clergy team," continues the report, "one of the biggest tools that they will have in helping calm the public down or to obey the law is the Bible itself, specifically Romans 13." As paraphrased by Dr. Tuberville, the message of that chapter is that "government's established by the Lord"; what he misses is that the text teaches that the sole legitimate function of government, which is subordinate to God's law, is to protect the innocent against lawless violence.

The Quislings in clerical garb employed by the DHS would preach to Americans a version of the same murderous idolatry taught by their forebears under the Third Reich: The role of religion is to sustain the State. The Nazis called this doctrine "Positive Christianity." I don't know what it would be called were our country to succumb to martial law, but I'm sure that the DHS is, even now, doing the appropriate market research.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

In an unusual move at the end of last month (or there abouts), a call went out to all former Army recruiters, still on active duty, to head back to their recruiting stations for an unspecified time. The order came with only 2 to 3 days to prepare to leave their current Army units. Was this to prepare for a mass recruiting effort after one of those expectected terrorist attacks? Guess time will tell.

Faith Based Initiatives and Clergy Response Teams, although envisioned as well intentioned programs, may be inching America closer to the kind of dark authoritarian state portrayed in the movie "V is for Vendetta". America's religious leaders should realize that the Federal Government rarely funds anything without attaching "strings". Jeopardizing the independence and integrity of one's faith/sect in such a "partnership" should be rejected as too high a cost to pay.

Ah, the Clergy Response Team. This is closely related to the efforts in Central Texas to pesuade rural churches to join a similar response network to dispense antidotes in case of chemical attacks. "Your volunteers and their families will be the first to get the medicines!" Our church soundly rejected joining any federal programs. The Clergy Response stuff came out a short time later, and no one contacted the clergy in our area.

If Jim Bowden pens political potboilers reflecting the perspective of the evangelical wing of the conservative movement (See “At Last, a Political-Thriller that Cultural Conservatives Can Love”), Matt Carson reflects the libertarian wing. In his slender, self-published novel, “On a Hill They Call Capital,” Carson places a gang of wise-cracking, tobacco-chewing good ol’ boys from Rappahannock County at the center of a plot to spark a second American revolution.

In the world of Matt Carson, a Northern Virginia writer, government has become the leviathan state. The governing class, in the words of Ronald Reagan, has taken on the attitude, “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” In a post 9/11 twist, government doesn’t threaten only economic liberties, it undermines their civil liberties. To Carson, the Patriot Act aims a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun at the Bill of Rights.